With Ghana’s elections just around the corner, the groundswell of opposition against the ‘breaking the eight’ mantra is mounting, especially from those who claim to be on a rescue mission.
Like the drowning man who will clutch at the straw, John Mahama and his NDC are on ‘promise-athon’ forgetting about the reality of the NDC’s time at the Jubilee House or is it Flagstaff House.
The NDC, its flagbearer, John Mahama, running mate, Professor Jane Naana Opoku Agyemang and others are on the prowl attacking anything they perceive to be standing in their way to return to power.
They are engaging with all manner of people, the latest being, artistes in Accra where one of them, Mercy Asiedu is on record to have said, “Mahama dashed us cars in 2016. Let’s campaign and bring him back so that he can do more.”
Ghanaians, we have time and again asked that you all ‘shine your eyes’ and be more discerning to appreciate that the 2024 elections are not about the sharing of cars to a few people by John Mahama but it is about the introduction of policies such as the free SHS which is impacting every home positively.
We will not run away from the fact that times are tough now, but the reasons for our present predicament cannot be laid at the doorstep of the Akufo-Addo government.
We shudder to conclude that Ghanaians are suffering from short memories as claimed by John Mahama. We do not think Ghanaians are forgetful like the NDC leaders and their supporters. Be that as it may, we want to refresh the memory of Ghanaians about the famous and popular speeches of President Akufo-Addo during the COVID pandemic.
These speeches resonated on the global stage to the point that our President became an icon among his peers. He said in one of such profound speeches that, “I assure you that we know what to do to bring our economy back to life. What we do not know how to do is to bring people back to life. We will, therefore, protect people’s lives, then their livelihoods.”
That was our situation during COVID and the leadership shown by the Akufo-Addo government, and the health apparatus was able to contain the situation.
During the period of COVID, there was a lockdown and the ports were closed down denying the country tax revenues but public and civil servants were paid. University lecturers, nurses, doctors, teachers and other public sector workers stayed home but they were paid.
The government provided safety nets such as food parcels to the needy, provided free water and subsidised electricity to the people.
The question is at whose cost and from where? It was from the public purse at the time the ports were closed. Instead of clapping for the government for managing the public affairs well in the midst of COVID, the opposition elements including the NDC are making ugly noises about the state of the economy.
Again, because we always exhibit short memories, we have forgotten that during the Mahama era in 2014, more than 200 lives were lost to cholera, which was avoidable if we had kept our environment clean.
The Akufo-Addo government has not managed the affairs of state to perfection, but despite the challenges it has kept the ship of state afloat. Call it what you want. If we have a semblance of dumsor, nobody in his or her stable mind can conclude that our present power challenges are equivalent to over four years of John Mahama’s dumsor.
The NDC has nothing to offer to change our fortunes. It is not surprising that more than one year after his election as flagbearer of the NDC, John Mahama is yet to show concrete evidence of how he expects to fix the challenges of the economy. So far, the NDC has no defined policy objectives to attain its lame rescue mission.